


Jewel Heist

by thecoquimonster



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-07 01:08:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11612784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecoquimonster/pseuds/thecoquimonster
Summary: Crowley had always been a bit of a thief.





	Jewel Heist

**Author's Note:**

> Once upon a time (last month) I read Good Omens and I haven't stopped thinking about these characters since.

Crowley had always been a bit of a thief.

From humans, he stole little things: a gold watch someone’s grandmother gave them, money from their wallets, driver’s licenses. At a store, he made his cashier doubt that the change she had given him was exact, and had accidentally handed Crowley much more than he was owed. That cashier, he imagined, was going to receive a terrible lecture from her manager.

These things were not important to him. It was a part of his job to spread misery among the humans. But he was skilled in the art of subtlety. He ruined their day just enough to make them turn around and take out their frustrations on another person. And thus, the cycle continued.

The change jingled around his pocket. He grimaced as he got into the Bentley. He should not feel any sort of _guilt_ for this. Crowley was just doing what he’d always done. Still, the cashier’s frantic eyes flashed in his mind’s eye. Crowley bit his lip. He would give the extra change to Aziraphale and what the angel decided to do with it was none of Crowley’s concern, really.

He drove towards the angel’s bookshop. Cars swung out of his way. He veered and parked by the store with a screech of his brakes. He brought the bottle of wine with him.

Crowley didn’t just steal from humans. He had stolen from an angel, too.

A heart.

Crowley had walked into an Arrangement with an angel a thousand years ago and come out of the other side after the Nopacalypse, cradling an angel’s love.

“Aziraphale?” Crowley called as he entered the bookstore. The bell rang a welcoming, if annoying, tune as the door to the shop opened. Crowley scrunched his nose against the dusty air. He really should try to talk Aziraphale into finding other ways to discourage customers from coming into the shop. All this dust was no good for anybody, even for angels and demons who didn’t need to breathe.

“Coming!” The angel’s voice held a note of relief, a _thank Heavens it’s you._ Crowley pondered over the irony of an angel being relieved, even delighted, to see a demon rather than a human. But this wasn’t any angel. It was his angel. Aziraphale.

Aziraphale appeared out of the back room to meet Crowley at his desk.

“Did you say you brought wine?” asked Aziraphale.

“I didn’t,” Crowley said. He presented him with the bottle. “But you know me well.”

Aziraphale broke into a grin and took the wine from him. He pressed a kiss against Crowley’s cheek and turned away—casually, the kiss would have been heartbreakingly casual if Crowley hadn’t begun to _expect_ this—to walk into the back room again. Manifesting two wineglasses, Crowley was left with no choice but to follow.

Crowley settled down on the couch to watch the familiar scene of Aziraphale popping open the bottle of wine and pouring it out. An exact amount in each glass. He was always so precise.

How could this be so familiar? Yet Crowley was not used to it. He had both come to expect this, and was surprised by it every day. Every day, every hour, every minute felt stolen.

He supposed it was.

Crowley had stolen time from the universe. The forces of Heaven and Hell had gathered to end this world. Hand in hand, he and Aziraphale had stood up to their superiors and _taken_ more time. It didn’t hurt that Adam Young, the misplaced Antichrist, had refused to play in the game of Good versus Evil. He had grown up human, and had chosen humans before anything else. He’d observed the two sides putting forth their chess pieces and had knocked the game to the ground.

Heaven and Hell were, of course, perplexed by this.

They only had the power to watch as an Antichrist, a demon, and an angel reached out and took from them. They were upset, like children who had just been told they could not have ice cream before dinner. But they’d gone home without _too_ much of fuss, considering.

Aziraphale had mentioned something about it all being a part of God’s Ineffable Plan in the first place. That stopping the Apocalypse what was what they were meant to do. Crowley smiled at the angel as Aziraphale turned and offered him a glass of wine. It didn’t make the angel any less a thief.

Whether it was part of the Ineffable Plan or not, Crowley could not help the tightening in his stomach as he imagined what would have happened had the Antichrist _not_ been raised as fully human, had he and Aziraphale not acted to stop the end of the world.

Six thousand years seemed like a long time. Crowley and Aziraphale knew this to be false. However long the six millennia felt behind them, eternity stretched before them. An eternity that the Apocalypse had threatened to cut short. An Apocalypse that would prove to make the previous six millennia worthless.

An Apocalypse that had brought an angel and a demon—two beings who by all accounts should think of the other as the Enemy; two beings who by their own accounts regarded the other as a Friend—even closer together.

Aziraphale settled down on the couch beside him. Their wineglasses clinked together, bringing Crowley back to the present. Aziraphale lifted his glass to take a sip. He noticed Crowley’s pensive expression and lowered the glass, eyebrows knit. “Is something the matter, my dear?”

Crowley shook his head. “I have something else for you.”

He reached into his pocket and brought out the coins he had stolen from the cashier earlier that day.

A mixture of affection and gentle disapproval crossed Aziraphale’s face. Crowley dropped the coins into the angel’s palm. Aziraphale’s fingers closed around the coins. He sighed like he had just discovered that his cat had brought in a bird. “I do hope that poor cashier won’t get fired.”

“I’m sure she won’t be _that_ short,” Crowley replied. He retracted his hand and leaned farther back into the sofa. He drank a bit of his wine. “People do it all the time, the greedy things.”

Aziraphale sighed again, but didn’t argue. “I suppose this is a chance for me to make up for your mischief with some kindness.”

“Well, that _is_ why I gave you the money,” Crowley said. “I can’t very well go around giving strangers my spare change.”

“Of course you can!” insisted Aziraphale. “I thought Good and Evil were just names for sides?”

Crowley smiled. Six thousand years’ worth of interactions, and it always came back to this. He took off his sunglasses, knowing that his yellow snake eyes glinted with something a little like fondness. Aziraphale, who had been taking a sip of his wine, began to smile too wide to drink. The wineglass found itself on a nearby table.

“What?” Aziraphale asked when Crowley’s silence had gone too long to be borne. The two were still grinning at each other. If they had been human, their cheeks might have started to grow tired by now.

“That’s right,” said Crowley. He nodded and finished off his wine. He set the wineglass on the table beside Aziraphale’s. “Exactly right. You haven’t always exactly been the pinnacle of angelic altruism.” 

“No?” Aziraphale smiled in that way that made Crowley’s heart stutter.

Crowley had stolen an angel’s love. He hadn’t necessarily intended to, and he couldn’t remember when exactly he had done it. But he had done it all the same. When Crowley leaned in for the kiss, Aziraphale met him with ease. He was soft and tentative, even now. Crowley was hyper-aware of the feeling of the angel’s breath on his skin as they pulled away.

“No,” Crowley confirmed as he felt his heart being plucked out of his chest like a precious diamond in a jewel heist. He didn’t mind much. Fair was fair.

A slow smile spread over Aziraphale’s face. He leaned in and stole a kiss.

After all, Aziraphale was a bit of a thief himself.


End file.
